


13 Days of Halloween

by caitastrophe8499



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Halloween, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27115405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caitastrophe8499/pseuds/caitastrophe8499
Summary: A little Halloween fun, guys!Rating is more for the scary bits and movies.Hopefully, one chapter a day until Halloween! Some creeps, freaks, and OTPs.
Relationships: Sara Lance/Leonard Snart
Comments: 133
Kudos: 55





	1. Scary monsters, super creeps

**“Time anomaly detected. Please report to the bridge.”**

Sara stared at her bed for a long moment, then sighed. Grabbing the jeans she’d only just taken off and a clean sweater, she opened the door as she tugged on the boots, seeing Leonard rolling up his sleeves.

“What is it this time?” he asked, exhaustion tinging his words.

Despite her similar tiredness, she couldn’t help but smile a bit, something still feeling a bit more right now that Leonard Snart was back on board. He’d shown up in S.T.A.R. Labs right after the whole meta-crisis nonsense, and they’d sent a message to the Waverider.

Sara hadn’t dared to believe it until they’d landed and he was waiting outside the Labs, leaning against the wall like he hadn’t been gone for four years. It took a while before Nate and Zari had understood, but Ray and Mick welcomed him back easily, and John was flirting before Leonard had finished insulting him for the first time. He slid back into the crew as if he’d never left.

Even better, they’d slipped back into their former closeness, with cards and cautious flirting as they both tested the waters. Sara was single, Leonard was alive, and they both seemed to be enjoying the rapport they’d once had. She wasn’t certain how far he wanted to push it, or if that had all been talk, and neither one of them brought up the kiss. At least, not yet.

But there had been Moments. She was sure of that. A brief touch as he passed her a card, a tendency to linger at her door, the two of them sitting closer than they once had. One very tense moment where she’d been helping him to bandage a lucky swipe from a werewolf on his back and he’d turned around unexpectedly and she’d…

“No idea,” she answered him, shaking her head clear. She tipped slightly as she tried to get her shoe on and Leonard grabbed her elbow to keep her steady.

“For a timeship,” he drawled, “we always seem to be in a rush going somewhere.”

“Tell me about it. I think I might disconnect the anomaly detector for a long weekend.” She got her boot on and put her foot down, Leonard releasing her just a fraction of a second too slowly.

“Promises, promises, Captain.”

Sara tried to smile but was interrupted by a gigantic yawn.

“Come on,” Leonard said, gesturing towards the bridge. “Let’s go hear the disaster, then sic Heywood on it.”

They approached the bridge, hearing the groans and mutters of the rest of the crew. Constantine had already taken a seat and apparently gone back to sleep, not that she blamed him. The last mission had involved something called a camazotz - some kind of giant man-bat - and it had tossed them all around for a while before Constantine had managed to send it back. Mick looked like he was sleeping standing up, Zari was leaning on the console, her head on her arms, and Ray was just now walking in, his eyes half-closed. Charlie came in after him, wearing a long t-shirt and shorts that she was very obviously prepared to sleep in.

“Alright, Gideon,” Sara said as she and Leonard walked in. “What’ve you got?”

**“I apologize for keeping you all up, but there is an...unusual anomaly that appears to be growing in strength the longer it exists.”** Images appeared over the console, of a carnival or a fair, it was hard to tell.

**“At the Haunted Thrills Park, patrons have been found in severe states of panic after visiting one of the attractions, though it is unclear which one. They’ve described everything from zombies to Frankenstein’s monster to vampires, all of which they claim attacked them. Some of them have had physical bruises and wounds, but most have not. Authorities have searched all the attractions and found nothing, but the number of complaints has been increasing in frequency and severity. The most recent one, a self-proclaimed horror junkie, was hospitalized due to shock.”**

“A shapeshifter?” Charlie asked her usual sarcasm down to a dull monotone.

Gideon didn’t answer for a long moment. Then she said,  **“There is no trace of magical creatures in the area.”**

Leonard frowned up towards the ceiling. “It’s not magical?”

**“Not as far as I can tell.”**

“Then what is it?” Ray asked.

**“I...don’t know.”**

It was silent in the wake of Gideon’s admission.

“So,” Sara said with a sigh. “We’re going to have to go old school. Investigate the whole place, looking for an anomaly.”

The looks she got from most of the people in the room weren’t encouraging. “What?” Sara asked, looking at their faces.

“It’s...it’s a bunch of haunted houses,” Ray said quietly.

“Yeah?” Sara said, confused.

Ray shifted and it clicked in Sara’s sleep-deprived brain. “You’re afraid of haunted houses.”

“I don’t think being afraid of ax-wielders is fear,” Ray said, his voice a little high, “so much as it’s common sense.”

“Fine,” Sara said, “you can sit this one out. Nate, you and Mick will -”

Nate interrupted with a long, “Ummm…”

“Not you, too,” Sara said, a little sharper than she meant.

“Sorry. My dad showed me the  _ Exorcist  _ as a kid, and now I can’t stand horror movies.”

“Fine,” Sara said sharply. “Mick -”

“I’m out,” Mick said shortly.

“Seriously?” she huffed.

“Blame Snart’s sister.”

Sara looked back at Leonard, who shrugged. “One Halloween, Lisa dressed up as the girl from the  _ Ring  _ and hid in Mick’s closet.”

“I nearly punched her.”

“After you screamed.”

“Fuck you, Snart.”

Sara looked at Constantine, who shrugged, still half-asleep. “Dunno how much good I’ll be, luv, if it isn’t magic.”

“And you?” Sara asked Zari and Charlie.

“Not a huge fan of horror,” Zari said, her face still in her arms. “I’ll scream. A lot.”

Charlie shrugged. “Same. But I’ll just punch anyone who scares me.”

That was tempting... Sara looked at Leonard, half-expecting him to bow out, too, but he just met her eyes.

“It takes more than a bad actor and some lighting to frighten me.”

At least there was someone she could count on. “Gideon, how long till we land?”

**“Six hours.”**

Better than nothing. “Fine. Leonard and I will handle the recon, Constantine, Zari, and Charlie stay on the ship as backup, which means Nate, Ray, and Mick are on ship duty for the next six hours so the rest of us can get some rest.”

Nate opened up his mouth to argue, but Sara pierced him with a warning glare and he wisely reconsidered and said, “Aye, aye.”

“Wake me when we land,” Sara said, heading back to her room before someone else bailed on her. She heard Leonard behind her, but he didn’t say anything until she opened her door.

“See you in a few hours,” he said, heading into his room.

“Hey.” She turned, making sure he was paying attention before she continued. “Thanks. For not trying to get out of this.”

“I’ve got your back, assassin.” He gave her a small, albeit tired, smile.

“I know.” She smiled back, and it felt like they were right on the edge of another one of those Moments, but she was so damn tired. “‘Night.”

“Night.”

She slid into bed, almost looking forward to tomorrow. Sure, it was a mission and people had almost died, but it had been a while since she and Leonard had gone out on their own. They’d gone off the ship when they’d landed, but it was always for a mission, and the one time it had been for drinks, Mick and Charlie had come, too. So, she was kind of excited. Besides, a haunted house should be fun, right?

* * *

Another high-pitched scream came from right behind Leonard, and he did his best not to sigh. Sara grinned up at him, and he couldn’t help but shake his head at her, exasperated.

This was the fourth house they’d been in, and he was starting to get a headache. Every time they went into one, they were grouped with a gaggle of teenage girls, who seemed intent on breaking the sound barrier every time they screamed. Sara let the girls pass her, waiting for Leonard to catch up to her.

“Every time they scream,” Leonard said quietly, “I start to hope it’s a real murderer.”

Sara nudged his shoulder but smiled. “Come on. Only a few more rooms to go here.”

They moved through the next room, where an unconvincing actor in a lab coat asked them how they were feeling. Leonard was too irritated to even pretend to be scared.

“Headache, doc, any suggestions?”

The doctor gestured over to where a large jar held a facsimile of a head. “Removal…”

Ahead of them, in the next room, the girls started to scream again.

“I might take you up on that,” Leonard muttered.

Sara took his arm and pulled him onwards. He didn’t fight it, enjoying the contact. They were both attempting to blend in, Sara wearing jeans and an orange sweater for the Halloween vibe, while Leonard stuck with black. He didn’t have his gun, and he knew that Sara had forgone several of her knives, though not all of them. He had a device from Ray in his pocket that would blind anyone for a few seconds and a knife in his boot, but they weren’t foolish enough to do this completely solo. As soon as they knew what they were dealing with, they’d contact the  _ Waverider  _ and figure it out from there.

So, Leonard was enjoying what basically amounted to shore leave with Sara. Headache and all.

They went into the next room, and though Leonard noticed the gap in the wall, it appeared Sara didn’t. When the man dressed as a zombie lunged out, Sara let out a sound that wasn’t exactly a scream, and jumped, her hand tightening on Leonard’s arm. He did his best not to laugh, but as they moved on and Sara looked up at him, he knew he was smirking.

“So much for the big, bad assassin,” he said.

“Shut up,” she muttered, though she didn’t let go of his arm.

He didn’t mind.

They made it through the house of horrors without actually being horrified and found themselves outside once more. Sara let go of him as they exited, and he was disappointed. The small touches they’d shared before he died had only seemed to increase upon his return, though she wasn’t making the move to do anything else. Though, to be fair to her, she had made the last move. He supposed it was his turn. Leonard let out a sigh and looked around.

“Running out of houses,” he observed. “Two left.”

Sara nodded, rubbing her hands together. “Alright, haunted hospital or classic house?”

“Neither.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Come on, Snart. Almost done.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the hospital. Leonard glanced down at the joined hands and followed her, his headache unimportant in the wake of her smile. The things he'd do for this girl...


	2. You see, Jason was my son, and today is his birthday...

The hospital had been a bust, and Leonard’s headache was back in full force. The crowds were starting to thin out at this point, many of the revelers choosing to head towards the bars down the street now that their adrenaline rushes had been given. He was half-tempted to suggest that himself, but he was nothing if not thorough, and they still had one house left.

“So, if it isn’t here,” he started, as they started towards the final house, “then what?”

Sara, who was walking close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm with every other step, gave a little shrug. “Must be someone who moves around. We’ll have to start looking at social media for pictures of people, since there aren’t any cameras here.”

“Thrilling.”

She laughed. “Yeah, nothing says ‘saving the world’ quite like a deep-dive into someone’s Instagram."

“Truly heroic,” he drawled, getting another one of those smiles.

“Well, it’s no noble sacrifice, but it’s something.”

Leonard glanced down as Sara seemed to catch what she had said, biting her lip and looking straight ahead. It was the first time she’d directly referenced his death beyond the first day. First time either one of them had referenced it, actually.

“Couldn’t let you be the only one to come back from the dead,” he said, watching her for her response.

Sara’s tension eased slightly, but the smile she gave him was still a little tight. “Right. I wouldn’t mind if you never did it again, though.”

“Would you miss me if I did, assassin?” he pressed, finding a sense of bravado among the laughing screams around them. His words were honest but layered with a note of teasing. She could take the out if she wanted.

He half-expected her to grin and flirt, dance around their feelings like they had been since he’d come back, but the smile faded. “I would.” She glanced up at him. “I did.”

Oh, that felt nice to hear. He knew, in some ways, that she’d missed him, but to hear it from her, that was something encouraging all on its own. He gave her a bit of an admission back, then. “I’ve got no plans to die anytime soon. I’ve got a list of a few more things I need to steal.”

Sara met his eyes, the smile finally returning. “Oh?”

“Very important things,” he said quietly. “Not going anywhere until I get them.”

She grinned, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Glad to hear it.”

They approached the final house, which had no line outside of it, luckily. Leonard saw a group of teenagers approaching them and put his hand on Sara’s back, propelling her forward with the added bonus of touching her again. “Hurry up, before they group us up with them.”

Sara laughed and opened the door to the house. It closed behind them, and Leonard blinked a few times, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness.

There was a faint light coming from the dingy chandelier above them. Unlike the other houses, there wasn’t a man to greet them or take the tickets that they needed to enter the houses. There was silence instead of the cliche soundtracks and scary sounds that had played in other houses. No screams of other guests, not maniacal laughter from an overdramatic actor.

It was just a midsize entryway, with a door on either side of the wide hallway, and the door they came in from, but Leonard had to quell the urge to take a step back.

“Hello?” Sara called.

With his hand still on her back, Leonard could feel her start to tense as no one responded.

“If I were a non-magical creature who existed to frighten people,” he murmured quietly, letting his words fade off as they looked around the empty room.

Sara laughed faintly, but he noticed her reaching for the knife at her back. He checked his pocket to make sure Ray’s flash bomb was still in there, adjusting the hilt of the knife in his boot.

“Shall we try door number one?” Sara asked him.

“Got your back, Lance.”

She smiled again, as if that was obvious, and walked towards the door on the left. She turned the knob and it squeaked slightly in the silence of the room. She pushed it open, a wave of cooler air wafting towards them as she stepped in, Leonard right behind her.

The door shut behind them, but Leonard didn’t bother to look, his eyes widening slightly, unwillingly impressed. In front of them was the most elaborate setup in the whole park.

They stood on a small, dirt-packed path that headed towards a few cabins, lights glowing in the windows. To the right, a large lake. He could smell campfire smoke and the pine trees around them, and when he bent down to run his hand on the ground, there wasn’t cement or wood beneath it - it was real dirt.

“Hell of a production,” Sara said, her hand on one of the trees. “How are they doing this?”

“Dunno,” Leonard said, picking up a rock. He bounced it in his hand, then hurled it towards the water. Though he lost sight of it in the shadows, he heard a plop as it landed in the real water, and the ripples of the lake headed outwards, lapping against the shore. “How is this all real?”

“Uh, Len?”

He looked around, seeing Sara staring behind them. Turning, he looked to where they had come in, seeing only the rest of the dirt road, heading off into the distance, and pine trees towering high above them.

And no door.

“Safe to assume we’re in the right place, huh?” he said quietly.

Sara let out a little laugh and reached for her phone to call it in to the  _ Waverider _ . She stared at the screen, then looked up at him. “No service,” she said, half in disbelief.

Leonard checked his phone - the phone that was connected to the  _ Waverider  _ itself and could reach the ship no matter the time period or technology of the place they were in - to find that he also didn’t have service.

"So much for that backup," Leonard muttered, tucking it away.

Sara gave him another small laugh. “So what now?”

He spun in a small circle, but the only thing Leonard could see of interest was the cabins. “Let’s check out those.”

They fell into step as they walked the path, crickets and other small insects buzzing around them. He even spotted a few fireflies as they got closer. Sara stopped for a moment, examining some marks in one of the trees, and Leonard turned, seeing a wooden sign just ahead of them, though it was hard to read in this light. He got a little closer, his brain giving him a name even though he couldn’t actually read it until he got closer.

“Ever see  _ Friday the 13th _ ?” he called back to her.

He heard her turn but didn’t look back, reading the words  _ Camp Crystal Lake _ on the wooden sign.

“Which one was that again? Michael or Jason?” she asked.

“Jason. But it was really-”

“A woman?” Sara interrupted, her voice louder.

Leonard turned, seeing the very figure from the movie approaching them. He wasn’t a horror movie aficionado by any means, but the costume on this woman was good. She was the right height, and the white, cable knit sweater was almost exactly the same from the final scenes. Her hair, her age...everything was almost perfect.

Sara smiled at the actor. “Nice job, this place is -”

The Mrs. Voorhees actress took a few steps closer and lifted a knife that looked just like the one from the movie, even smeared with a bit of blood from the supposed previous murders.

Something ran down Leonard’s spine and he took a step nearer. “Sara...”

Mrs. Voorhees screamed and ran towards Sara, knife upraised. Sara flinched, but held her ground; none of the actors had touched them so far, but she lifted her hand on instinct and then -

Leonard saw a spray of red as the knife sliced down Sara’s arm and he heard the assassin hiss in pain.

“What the shit?” Sara shouted at the woman, grabbing her wounded arm with her free hand.

Mrs. Voorhees just took another step, raising the knife again.

Sara ducked under it and darted towards Leonard. He grabbed her good arm and pulled her into the nearest cabin, Mrs. Voorhees chasing after them, spewing nonsense about her son and it being his birthday and -

Leonard slammed the door shut and looked over to meet Sara’s eyes.

“This is real?!” she shouted, holding her arm.

Leonard winced as something pounded into the door behind him and jumped away from it as the tip of the knife suddenly pierced through the wood, almost catching the back of his shoulder.

He got shoulder to shoulder with Sara as the door opened up slowly, revealing Mrs. Voorhees, knife in hand, standing in the entrance.

“Yeah, I’d say it’s real."


	3. Here’s Johnny!

Now that the shock had worn off, Sara was angry.

All night, she’d been tamping down on her instincts to fight back for fear of hurting some teenage kid just doing their job, only to almost actually be killed by a knife-wielding psychopath. She blamed it partially on it being so unexpected and partially the proximity of so much water - she still hadn’t entirely recovered from her near-drowning on the  _ Gambit _ . She was now ninety percent anger and ten percent embarrassment. The only consolation is that Leonard had decided to run instead of attacking, which meant that he was just as thrown off by this as she was. As the old lady stepped into the room, Sara let go of her bloodied arm and reached for her own knife.

“This is real, right?” she asked, unsheathing it. “She’s a murderer?”

Leonard straightened at her side, his hand going to his pocket. “Far as I can tell. Either way, she did just try to kill you.”

“Good point.” Sara stepped forward, enjoying the old lady’s confusion as she moved forward instead of back. “Save the flash bomb. I’ve got this.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Leonard step back with a smile.

When the lady raised the knife again, Sara moved, grabbing her wrist and striking out herself. She gave the woman a small slice on her shoulder but felt her drop the knife. The woman howled and reached out with her fingers to claw at Sara’s face, but Sara hooked her leg behind hers, and knocked her to the ground, letting her hit her head on the way down. The woman shuddered, her eyes starting to roll up, and Sara flipped the blade in her hand to strike out with the hilt, making sure the woman was unconscious.

As the woman’s eyes went back and she went limp, she vanished out of Sara’s grip. The whole room seemed to vanish, dropping away as if it had all been nothing more than shadows, and Sara found herself kneeling on the floor of the house’s entryway, Leonard standing behind her.

She went to push up off the ground and drew in a sharp breath as her arm throbbed in pain. Leonard came forward, half his attention on the room around them and the other half on her. “You okay?” He helped her up, wincing as he looked at her arm.

“I’m pissed,” she admitted. She twisted her arm to try and get a good look at it, but it was hard to tell.

“Let me,” Leonard said, though he hesitated, his fingers hovering above her arm until she nodded. He held onto her elbow and wrist, as the cut ran along the outside of her forearm. His hands were warm and still, not at all uncomfortable at the sight of blood, and Sara felt a sense of ease that he was here, if only to have someone to watch her back. She watched him as he looked at the cut, the small furrow between his brows something she'd inexplicably missed.

“Doesn’t look too deep,” he said, pulling the edges of her sweater away from it. “How attached were you to this sweater?” He pulled his knife out as he asked, the intent clear.

“Just cut it.”

He gently sliced away the sides of the sleeve, then cut them off of the sweater entirely. Putting his knife away, he wrapped it tightly around the cut, tying the knot as tight as she could stand it. “How’s that?” he asked.

Sara extended her arm as much as she could, which was still only half of her normal movement. “Not my smartest move.”

“I don’t think either one of us expected to step onto a movie set. She surprised me, too.”

Sara took that as the consolation it was meant to be, and turned, ready to get out. “Oh, goddammit.”

Leonard turned as well, seeing that the door they’d come in from the street was gone, as was the first door they opened. There was just one more door on the wall, the one they hadn’t opened.

“So what, we keep going until we run out of doors?” Sara asked.

“Or until whatever this is gets what it wants.” Leonard looked at his phone again. He shook his head as she watched him hopefully. “Still nothing.”

Sara let out a sigh at how complicated this had gotten. It was supposed to be just recon. Upside, the  _ Waverider  _ knew where they were, and if they didn’t check in soon, Constantine, Zari, and Charlie would come looking.

“Guess we’re on our own,” Leonard said, brushing the dirt and blood off on his jeans.

Sara’s blood loss and adrenaline made her words a bit more honest than usual. “Well, if I had to be stuck here with anyone, I’m glad it’s you.”

Leonard was staring at her when she met his eyes, but she didn’t lower them. “The others were definitely…”

“Chickenshit?”

“That’s a word for it.”

“Not you, though,” she pointed out.

“Never.” The corner of his mouth curled up, and he looked at the only door left. “How about door number two?”

“I’ll let you take this one,” Sara said, letting out a little sigh as she took up a spot just behind him.

“Thanks.” He inhaled briefly, then pushed the door open.

They stepped through to a wide-open foyer, with a sweeping staircase opposite them. The wood floors were clean and shining, though Sara caught sight of a baseball bat leaning against the table. It was cold here, too. Even colder than at the lake and she suppressed a shiver. Snow piled outside of the windows, covering the bottom portion of the glass.

“Shit,” Leonard muttered, heading towards the table in the main room, glancing briefly at the typewriter. He ripped the paper out of the spool and looked at it for a second before dropping it to the table. “ _Shit_ ,” he repeated.

“What?” Sara asked. She edged nearer, her knife still out and in her palm. She looked at the words on the paper. _ All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy _ repeated over and over again.

“You see many horror movies, Lance?” Leonard asked, grabbing the bat and giving it a small spin. 

“Not really my thing,” Sara admitted. “I just prefer to risk my life, not have nightmares.”

“You’ve heard of the  _ Shining _ , right?”

“Only a little. Nicholson, right?”

“Right.” He hefted the bat up, and said, “Stay close, and watch out for axes.” He started towards the staircase, still talking quietly. “We kill the bad guy and the door opens up, right?”

“I don’t think I killed the old lady,” Sara said. “Just knocked her out.” He was walking with purpose down the hallway and Sara jogged slightly to keep up with his long legs. “Where are we going?”

“I’ve got better things to do than to wait around for him to come to us.”

“Oh, like what?” she asked, unable to help her smile. Horror movies were scary and all, sure, but they fought demons, monsters, and murderers on a daily basis. This was nothing truly horrifying, and it wasn’t like she was alone. Leonard was more than capable of taking care of himself, and her, if she needed him to. The same was true for her. If she was going to be stranded with anyone, the crook was top of her list.

Leonard chuckled slightly, glancing back at her. “You’ll see, Lance.”

“Promises, promises.”

They turned the corner, a geometric carpet lined by wooden doors, but Leonard froze and Sara nearly bumped into him. She looked beyond him to see twin girls in blue dresses, holding hands.

Both children titled their heads at the same time and said, “Come play with us, Leonard.”

As one, they turned and started walking down the hallway, they turned a corner and disappeared. Leonard stared after them and shook his head slightly as if to clear it.

“You okay?” Sara asked.

He nodded. “That scene was always the worst.”

“How did they know your -”

A scream interrupted her, and a voice shouting something over the sounds of breaking wood. Leonard started off down the hallway, taking a set of steps higher, Sara on his heels. He pushed open a door to reveal what looked like an apartment rather than a hotel room. There was a man with an ax trying to break through a door off in the corner, with what sounded like a woman screaming behind it.

Leonard didn’t hesitate, striding forward and swinging the bat around to crack into the man’s skull, dropping him with one concussive blow.

The man slumped to the ground and the screaming stopped. Leonard knelt next to the figure, checking his pulse. He looked back at her over his shoulder, “Do you think that -”

Sara blinked and they were back in the main hall of the house, the light much dimmer here than it had been in the hotel.

On either side of them, there were no doors. The front door still wasn’t there, but now a staircase lay in front of them, leading them up to a second floor that definitely didn’t exist when they walked in.

The bat Leonard had been carrying was gone, too, disappearing at the same time the hotel had. Sara took a step toward him, holding out her hand to help him up. He took it, his fingers lingering in hers for a moment longer, though both of them were looking up the staircase.

“Onwards and upwards?” he murmured.

Sara shrugged with one shoulder, flexing her hand as Leonard let go. “What’s the worst that could happen?” She put her hand on the railing and started up.

“Famous last words, Lance.” But he followed her upstairs nonetheless.


	4. When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just had parent/teacher conferences for 6 straight hours. My cheeks hurt from all the fake smiling. Enjoy some mild angst, a few corpses, and some casual honesty.

The second floor had a long hallway leading down to a window. The carpet was threadbare and matted, fraying in corners. The window opposite them was covered with similar, ratty burgundy curtains, no light coming through from the outside.

On either side of the hallway was a door.

Leonard went to the window first, tugging the curtain away, only mildly surprised to not see a window behind it.

“Nice thought,” Sara said, from where she was standing between the two doors.

“Would have made this too easy, I guess,” Leonard answered, coming back towards her.

“Left or right?” she asked.

“Does it matter?” He stopped in front of her, not particularly interested in either. “What’s the point of this?”

“Apparently they’re trying to scare us.” She looked up at him, neither one of them taking a step back, despite the fact that they were just a few inches too close for a normal conversation.

Leonard resisted the urge to take a step closer, just to see what she would do. But between the injury on her arm, the imminent danger they were in, and the lingering discomfort over seeing those twins, neither of them were exactly in the right frame of mind to see what would happen if he pushed her, good or bad. “Scared yet?”

“Not yet.” She smiled up at him.

“Then let’s go.” He pushed open the left door and they stepped through.

They were outside again. It was night here and the cemetery they were in was quiet and still. The moon hung low in the sky, crickets chirping in the darkness.

“What are we thinking?” Sara asked as she turned in a circle. “Werewolves? Dracula?”

Leonard took a step and drew up short, staring down at the overturned earth just to his right, the headstone tilted and a hole in the ground. “Gonna go with zombies.”

Sara glanced over at him, then sighed, looking at the knife in her hand. “Wish we still had that bat.”

“Not a fan of zombies?” Leonard asked, drawing a little closer to her as they left the center of the graves for the path along the edge of the cemetery, eyes peeled for one of the undead.

“Not so much. I used to play all those video games, the  _ Resident Evil _ ones, as a kid.”

“Weren’t those a movie?” He vaguely recalled Lisa being mildly obsessed with them for a few years.

“Games first. Chris Redfield was always my favorite character,” she said, her head still on a swivel as they walked.

“So what changed?”

Sara shrugged, but her eyes unfocused for a moment. “Now they just remind me of the Revolutionary War.”

Leonard had heard about that briefly, but not too many details. “Mick told me about that. I thought it went well. His statue and all."

Sara nodded. “It did. The zombies themselves weren’t so terrible. But the Legion did this thing to Rip, and he was working for them, and...you know.” Her free hand drifted up to her throat.

“I don’t know,” Leonard corrected her, the feeling he'd had when facing down the twins in the Overlook hotel coming back threefold. "He said you fought Hunter, but nothing more than that."

"Oh."

"What happened?"

She turned to look at him, the expression in her face confirming his worst fears before she said, “Rip, he...he wasn’t in control, the Legion had him brainwashed or something. He shot me and when I was recovering on the Waverider, he got aboard and...finished the job.”

“Hunter killed you?” Leonard asked, whatever sympathy he had for the former captain’s death fading almost instantly.

“He didn’t mean to, he -” Her eyes went wide and she moved forward, the blade in her hand.

Without looking, Leonard twisted out of her way, only turning when he was sure Sara had enough room to do what she needed to do. A rotting corpse was shambling up towards her, its arms outstretched. With two swift moves, she separated one hand from its arm and sliced across its throat deep enough to leave the head dangling. Another quick return of the blade severed it completely, and the skull bounced across the ground -

And stayed there.

Sara frowned down at it. "I thought killing made us leave?"

A groaning behind them started up, echoing off of the headstones and making the crickets silence themselves.

A horde of fifteen or so zombies shuffled towards them, tattered suits and funeral gowns not doing enough to cover their desiccated bodies.

"Guess we've gotta kill more," Leonard said. He eyed her, forcing a smile he didn't quite feel in the wake of his unanswered question. "I know you've got this, but would you mind if I helped out?"

She laughed tightly. "I could use a hand."

Leonard pointedly looked down at the one she'd just cut off, getting a more authentic laugh out of her, then the two of them started towards the horde.

They stayed close to one another. Though none of the zombies were a threat on their own, the sheer numbers might have been enough to overcome either one of them had they gotten behind. But with Leonard watching Sara's back, and her watching his, the zombies were dispatched with relative ease. The only casualty was Leonard's sweater, which a zombie had snagged before Sara had shoved one blade through its eye as she drew another one from beneath her sleeve. She pulled both of them across the zombie's face, not so much decapitating it as splitting the skull into two pieces.

"How sharp are those things?" Leonard asked, impressed.

Sara grinned at him and demonstrated on the last corpse. As the head tumbled off, it turned into smoke before it hit the ground, and they were back on the second floor of the house, one door left in the hallway. With the last of the zombies gone, their interrupted conversation was all Leonard could think about.

Wiping the flat of her knife off on her pants, Sara made to put it away, her eyes on the ground. “We should -”

“Sara.”

She let out a sigh, then looked up at him, the old shadows that had been on her face when they first met back once more. “I’m fine. Gideon brought me back. I wasn’t dead for long.”

“I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay. I’m fine.”

“No, it’s not. And you aren’t. Otherwise, you’d be able to talk about it more.”

She blinked, then let out a little surprised laugh.

“What?” He frowned at her, not expecting that reaction.

“You were always the only one who could tell when I was lying.”

He vividly remembered a conversation in Russia,  _ “That’s how a killer thinks. That’s not you anymore.” _

“Well, you called me out on my lies, too. Seems only fair.”

_ “It's obviously still weighing on your conscience. So stop being an ass and go deal with it.” _

“Well, thanks.” Her smile grew a bit softer, and she took a step toward him. “I know I’ve said things that were close, but I don’t think I’ve told you how glad I am that you’re back.”

Leonard mirrored her move, closing more of the distance between them. “I picked up on it.”

“Good.” Her eyes darted between his, dropping down for half a second before she looked at the door. “We should really…”

“Right.” They really had to work on their timing. “Well, since I can’t kill Hunter again, I suppose whatever’s behind this door will have to do.”

“He didn’t mean to do it.”

“But he did,” Leonard said, his hand on the doorknob. He didn’t turn it, though. “I died so you could live. Then Hunter went and messed up a perfectly good plan, per usual.”

“Well, you still saved the world,” Sara said.

“I really wasn’t thinking about saving the world,” he admitted, chancing a look back at her.

“And I didn’t really feel like my world had been saved,” Sara countered, her eyes fixed on him.

With nothing to say to that, Leonard just smiled and opened the door.


	5. We're friends 'til the end, remember?

The door led into an innocuous living room and Sara frowned. Toys were strewn on the ground, the shreds of wrapping paper still lingering beneath boxes.

She heard something move behind her and turned, looking, but saw nothing but a pile of toys.

"Any ideas?" she said quietly.

"It's familiar, but I’m not -"

There was the tap of something small running behind the couch to the side - an animal?

Leonard twisted to keep up with the sound, but it vanished again. 

"Not super thrilled with this one," she said, tense as her eyes scanned lower.

He chuckled. "Wouldn't be a horror movie if it didn't make you uncomfortable."

"Why are you so into them?" Sara leaned down, far enough away that anything beneath the couch or coffee table wouldn't be able to leap at her, and saw nothing but dust bunnies. For some reason, Leonard never struck her as the horror movie type.

"I watched them more when I was younger," Leonard said, keeping close as his eyes drifted around the room, picking up on details she was sure she was missing.

"Why'd you like them?"

“They were monsters,” Leonard said, drifting towards the bookshelf. “Not that action movie nonsense. For the most part, they were humans, at some point, who had turned into monsters.”

She turned in a circle, something red out of the corner of her eye disappearing before she could catch it. “You like monsters?”

“Not at all.” He smiled tightly. "It was just satisfying seeing monsters get defeated."

Sara kept her eyes on the ground, not wanting him to see her sympathy. He wouldn't like it, or he’d misinterpret it for pity, which Sara definitely didn’t feel for him. “I was never a big fan of them,” she said instead.

“Why not?”

She grinned, catching his eye. “The blonde always dies.”

The lights in the room dimmed for a moment, and Sara looked up in time to see something jump from the small chandelier.

“That’s for damn sure!”

Sara jerked back as it landed on her shoulder, small and relatively light. There was a tug on her hair as she threw her hand up automatically, trying to dislodge whatever it was. Her forearm hit the blunt side of a knife, and only then did Sara make sense of what she was seeing.

A child’s toy, a red-headed doll in overalls, was brandishing a knife just inches away from her face.

“Again, seriously?!” she shouted, grabbing the knife’s handle, which seemed obnoxiously large in the doll’s hands.

The little monster sneered at her. “Well, fuck you too!”

It was unexpectedly strong and nearly pulled the knife free from her, yanking hard on her hair and causing her to wince.

“Lance!” Leonard shouted.

She looked up in time to see Leonard pulling back his arm and stilled in her attempts to get free, barely even breathing. He hurled a heavy bookend at her, his aim perfect as he knocked the doll off of Sara’s shoulder. Even better, she was able to hang onto the knife, leaving Chucky weaponless.

The freaky toy got to its feet and flipped her off, scurrying off to hide beneath the couch. Sara used the knife he’d relinquished and hurled it at the doll. It went straight through his leg, pinning him before he could vanish again.

Sara went over and stepped on him, securing it to the ground before she looked at Leonard.

“Suggestions?”

“From what I remember, stabbing it through the heart should do it,” Leonard said. “Or setting it on fire.”

“Mick’s really missing out,” Sara grinned, pulling out one of her knives and crouching down, still keeping the monster in its place.

“Hey, hey, hey, come on, Blondie,” the thing started, raising its hands. “I’m just a toy, I just wanna play! Don’t you wanna play with me?”

“Hard pass, buddy,” Sara said. Without further conversation, she stabbed the toy through the heart, trying not to feel ridiculous.

Beneath her foot, the doll screamed and cursed, using language that even she found a little jarring, especially coming out of something meant for children. It went still, then broke into ashes beneath her boot, leaving the two of them in the hallway once more.

Leonard let out a long sigh, and Sara smiled up at him as she got to her feet. “Lemme guess, not a fan of dummies.”

“Decidedly not,” he answered. He glanced around the hallway, but no doors had appeared nearby. Sara craned her head down towards the window, where it looked like there was a new turn in the hallway. Leonard seemed to notice at the same time, and the two of them started towards the walled-up window.

“Then maybe it’s good you missed Leo. He had this dummy doll he used,” Sara said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood.

Instead, Leonard’s expression, already guarded from the room, shut down even further. “Yeah, I’ve heard a lot about him.”

Sara frowned at him as they rounded the corner, showing two more doors, and no windows. Figuring that, from the previous encounters, they were safe enough for now, Sara grabbed Leonard’s arm as he reached out to the first door, stopping him. “What was that supposed to mean?”

Leonard narrowed his eyes at her. “Nothing, assassin. Just that everyone’s told me about  _ Leo _ .”

She didn’t smile, though the sneer on his face and the obvious disdain in his tone nearly made her grin. So this is what jealousy looked like on Snart.

“Yeah?” she said, still holding onto his arm. “What have they said?”

“That he was nice. Kind. Helpful. Everyone on board was half in love with him before he left. He stayed behind to help you all get over the Professor.”

Every word was spat out with that same disgust, and Sara cocked her head at him. “Are you mad that we liked him? Or that you’re not like him?”

“I don’t want to be like him,” Leonard countered, straightening up to look down at her from his full height. He didn’t pull his arm away, though.

“Then what’s wrong?”

He just shook his head, looking away from her. “Nothing.”

She moved her hand from his forearm to his fingers, wrapping hers around his. Leonard’s eyes lowered to where their hands were joined, the anger fading away as he stared down.

He didn’t speak for a few moments, just staring down. When he started, he still didn’t look at her. “I don’t… understand why people who share my face and name earned such a different life. ”

Sara was too busy worrying about why he said it that way to respond, and he continued. “Mick told me you’ve run into a few, and heard about other me’s. I’m a mayor? A metahuman. A police detective. A hero,” he said bitterly, trying to pull away.

Sara held on tighter. “And I’m a lawyer. A CEO. Dead.” She waited until he looked up at her. “A mayor’s wife.”

The edge of his mouth twitched, like he thought about smiling. 

“I don’t know why our lives go so differently on other Earths,” Sara said. “I don’t know why I get to live, but Laurel had to die here. I think we’d go crazy trying to figure it out.”

She squeezed his hand gently, feeling encouraged as he responded, pressing back just a little. “I’m just trying to make the best choices I can for this Earth.”

“Doesn’t it make you angry?”

“Sometimes. It did before. A lot,” she admitted. “But life on this Earth isn’t too bad right now.”

He laughed, just a small exhale through his nose, but it was a laugh nonetheless.

“And you’re a hero here, too,” Sara reminded him.

Leonard squeezed her hand again, before letting go, and this time Sara allowed it to happen. “Granted, but I’m certainly no  _ Leo _ .”

“Leo is great,” Sara said, half to see the irritated look he shot her. She continued with, “But I much prefer the original.”

Leonard smiled, only a little smug. “That’s because I’ve got better taste.”

“That remains to be seen,” Sara said, arching a brow.

“Does it?” he countered quietly.

“Just pick a door, Snart,” she said, smiling.


	6. He came home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my daughter's 3rd birthday today, so you get this early!

The next room was a suburban house. Leonard recognized it immediately. “ _ Halloween _ .”

“Duh,” Sara retorted, glancing up and down the narrow hallway they were in.

“No. I meant this is the movie  _ Halloween _ . Michael Myers.”

“Is that the Shatner mask one?” she asked, looking over at him.

Leonard nodded, making sure his knife was in his hand. From what he remembered, Michael had been a big guy, and nothing short of death seemed to stop him. If that.

“Great,” she muttered. “More guys harassing women. Didn’t they make like ten of those?”

“Something like that.” He opened the door to his right, seeing a bedroom. The closet door was wide open, nothing more than clothes in it. He checked behind the door, just to be certain, and saw nothing. He shut it and moved down to another door, seeing Sara do the same on her side.

“I thought Jaime Lee Curtis killed him.”

Leonard checked the next room. Just a bathroom. He pulled the shower curtain aside, but nothing was looming there either. “They just thought it was him,” he said, closing it. “People in costumes, then he was resurrected a couple of times, I think.”

“Join the club,” she muttered. Leonard saw her pause and glance at him briefly. “How are you doing with that, by the way?”

“With what?”

“Being alive again.”

Leonard looked over, catching her eye. “Peachy.”

“Snart,” she said quietly, frowning a little.

He opened the next room, seeing nothing of interest. “Most days I’m fine.”

“You don’t talk about it.” Sara checked her room, looking behind the door, and he almost missed the muttered comment. “At least not to me.”

That wasn’t entirely true. He talked to her, but they were still dancing along those invisible lines. They were close enough to play cards and be honest about the day, but feelings and fears didn’t seem to be on the table. She’d never brought it up before tonight, and he’d been following her lead.

“Maybe I was waiting for an invitation,” he countered.

“Was the Oculus not invitation enough?” she shot back, shutting the door behind her.

His brows raised, not expecting her to call him out so obviously, and he couldn’t think of a response for a moment.

Sara chewed her lip, and her eyes dropped, which made Leonard take a step forward.

“Lance.”

“Forget it,” she said, waving her hand as if it didn’t matter at all.

“No.”

She glared at him, then turned her back to him before he could continue. Leonard was going to call her out on trying to distract him when she said, “Did you shut your doors?”

“Yeah, but -” he broke off when he saw that the door to the first bedroom he’d checked was open. “Dammit.”

Sara circled around to the other side as Leonard got closer, so they flanked the door. Leonard counted down on his fingers and Sara went in low while Leonard stayed high. He only saw a glimpse of a hulking figure stepping out from behind the door when Sara sliced across its legs, and Leonard socked him in the jaw if only to bring Myers down a little. The knife in Michael’s hand flashed, and Leonard ignored the line of pain on his shoulder in order to swing around with his own knife, cutting deeply into his chest.

Michael’s other hand swung out and knocked Leonard in the side of the head hard enough to make him see stars. He tried to back up, but tripped over something behind him, leaving him off balance and he dropped his knife.

A blur of gold and orange got between him and the blue form that was Michael Myers, silver flying faster than he could keep track. He heard a thud as Michael fell to the ground and saw Sara leaning over the monster before the room shifted and they were back in the hallway.

Sara turned toward him and even blurry, he could read the concern on her face.

“I’m fine,” he told her.

“You’re bleeding, and he nearly punched your head off. Let me take a look.” She half-forced him to sit, sliding down the wall and kneeled in front of him. She checked his eyes, and he was able to follow, the haze fading after a few moments of sitting.

“I don’t think you have a concussion,” she said, as she started looking over his arm. “This is deep, though. Worse than mine.”

It was high enough that he’d lose the whole sleeve and though it made him uncomfortable to show that much skin, he was also not stupid enough to want to bleed to death. “Tie it off for now,” he said, holding out his arm more so she could get easy access to the material.

She drew her knife but didn’t cut off his sleeve. Instead, she cut up the sleeve that was still whole on her sweater, then tied it off. As she finished, Leonard watched her face.

“To me,” he started, almost relieved when she didn’t look at him, “the Oculus was only a few weeks ago. To you, it’s been years. Mick said you’d been dating, so I thought that you weren’t...interested.”

Sara took a breath, then looked at him, still kneeling in front of him, her hand on his arm. “Dating’s not the same thing as moving on.”

“No,” he agreed quietly, not angry or hurt by any decisions she’d made when he was gone. They weren’t together, they hadn’t been anything. But… “I’m very different from your last serious relationship.”

Her eyes drifted back down to his arm, tightening the knot unnecessarily. He knew enough about the Director of the Time Bureau to know that he wouldn’t have gotten along with her. And for Sara to have been so serious with her...it suggested that the years he’d been gone had resulted in Sara finding something very different from him attractive. And though it was obvious they could still be friends, he didn’t want to pursue something she wasn’t interested in.

“Ava is very different in a lot of ways,” she agreed. “But there were things that were similar. You’re both very passionate about things. You both pretend to be calm and collected all the time. You’re both driven to be the best in your field.”

Leonard snorted briefly at that. Being the best in government work was very different than being one of the country’s most wanted. Sara’s mouth quirked up as she acknowledged that.

“But,” she continued quietly, “there’s also a reason I’m not with Ava anymore.”

“What’s the reason?”

“Because we weren’t meant to be. Everything with her felt like an uphill battle, and I do enough fighting to not want that kind of resentment in a relationship.” She got to her feet, offering a hand to pull him up. He took it but didn’t drop it once he was upright again. “I chose to end things with her.”

“And me?”

Sara smiled a little. “Well, you did come back from the dead only to rejoin my crew. And fighting with you has always been more fun. Even if your skull can be a little thick sometimes.” She tapped his forehead gently, right next to the bruise he was certain he was going to have tomorrow.

“Saying we’re meant to be, Lance?” He tried not to smile too much at the idea.

“I’m saying,” she said with a grin, “that I chose to invite you in for cards and drinks when you came back, and now I’m waiting for your choice.”

She stepped back, dropping his hand, but leaving a lot more than that open to him.

“Easy choice,” he said.

The smile grew into a grin. “Tell me all about it when we get somewhere safer. Let’s go kill the rest of these monsters.”


	7. No one really runs away from anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit gets real, guys.

Leonard followed Sara into the next room, well aware at this point that there wasn’t anywhere he wouldn’t follow her. As they stepped into a small hotel room, however, he did have a moment of doubt.

Sara turned in a small circle, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the brighter light. She caught sight of his expression and stilled. “What? Where are we now?”

“Bates Motel, if I’m not mistaken,” he said quietly.

“ _ Psycho _ ?”

Leonard nodded and Sara let out another sigh. “Okay. It’s just the one guy, right?”

“I think so.”

She arched a brow as she went to the half-open bathroom door. Leonard followed her, not entirely surprised to see the body of Marion in the tub, blood swirling down the drain. “You think so?”

“I’ve never actually seen this one all the way through,” he admitted, keeping his eye on the main door.

“Why not?” Sara asked.

“Mother issues.” He heard someone coming up to the door.

“You don’t talk about your mom much,” Sara observed. She cocked her head as she spoke and they moved to either side of the door once again, waiting for Norman to come in.

“Hard to talk about someone I didn’t know,” he whispered in return.

The door opened and they both moved.

It was quick. Norman didn’t stand a chance. For a moment, Leonard was certain they’d have to take care of the mother’s skeleton, too, but when Norman’s head cracked against the door jamb, the room faded.

A moment later, they were back in the house, Norman’s unconscious body vanishing along with the rest of the motel. Leonard brushed off his hands. “This seems to be getting easier.”

“Hey,” she said, coming a little nearer. “You didn’t know her?”

“She ran out when I was a kid,” Leonard said. He didn’t think about her all that often, and though it had bothered him when he was younger, it was just another fact of his life to him now. “Haven’t seen her since. Don’t even know if she’s alive.”

“What about Lisa?”

“She’s my half-sister.”

She nodded, no apologies or sympathy, and he was reminded just how easy it was to talk to her. “So, Norman hits a little close to home?” The smile took the sting out of the comment, and he took it as the joke it was meant.

“A few too many similarities,” Leonard retorted with a smirk. He looked around, but there weren’t any more doors, nor any more hallways to search.

“Shit,” Sara whispered.

Leonard looked and followed her gaze upwards, to where an attic pull string hung down, and which definitely hadn't been there before. He sighed and reached up, tugging it. They moved aside as the ladder unfurled down, landing on the carpet with a tiny burst of dust. For a second, they both stared upwards, into the shadowy recesses of the attic space, dust filtering down from the dark.

“Ladies first,” Leonard said, gesturing upwards.

She made a face at him and led the way upwards, the ladder creaking under her weight. He was right behind her, making sure she wouldn’t be up there alone for more than a second.

Once up there, they stood in the attic and looked around. It was bare, no sheet-covered furniture or dilapidated store mannequins. Just wooden floors, dust, and four doors along the right and left walls.

“That’s a change,” Leonard said, trying to find a difference between the doors themselves. “Why four now?”

“Dunno.”

“I’m running out of movies that legitimately scared me,” he said, reaching for one of the handles. “Shall we?” He looked back and paused.

Sara was frowning.

“What?”

“You don’t like  _ Psycho _ .”

He raised his brow. “No.”

“And you don’t like dummies like Chucky, or the twins in the  _ Shining _ .”

He didn’t like where this was going. “What about the others?”

“I don’t know the movies, but Michael Myers went after girls, and the zombies reminded me of Rip,” she said, staring at him.

“And  _ Friday the 13th _ ?” Leonard asked, frowning now as he caught on.

“All that water,” Sara answered quietly.

“Shit,” he said quietly, half at the situation and half at the fact he hadn’t noticed how much the rooms had bothered her.

Leonard stepped back from the door, suspicious now. Sara continued.

“The twins spoke to you. Only you,” she reminded him, “even though we were both there.”

“It’s switching between us,” he summarized.

“And I’d say they’re ramping up.”

Leonard nodded, eyeing the door behind him. “So what happens when it runs out of movies?” he asked.

They both stared at one another, neither of them answering the question.

Then Sara gave a short laugh and a shrug. “What choice do we have?”

“Good point,” he said. He eyed the doors again, then glanced at her. “Well, since it’s your turn anyway.”

She shook her head. “No, you can pick and I’ll just suffer.”

Leonard smirked, well aware both of them were doing their best to keep up a good face. “Alright, assassin. Stay behind me and the petty thief will protect you.”

“My hero,” she said, grinning as she stepped up behind him.

Leonard smiled back at her, opening a random door and stepping in, with every intention of handling whatever lay beyond. He heard Sara follow him in, and there was the smallest brush against his wrist like she meant to take his hand. As the door shut behind them, he reached back, taking the jump that he’d accurately interpreted her movement, but nothing touched his hand. He frowned and turned back to -

Sara was gone.

Leonard froze, his eyes scanning the new room - another cemetery, with a familiar skyline he couldn’t quite place just now - but no blondes.

“Assassin?” he called out. “Lance?”

He looked around for any sign, but there was nothing. No people. No movement. No sign of her, and no door out.

“Sara!” Leonard shouted, cognizant of the fact that he might be drawing attention to himself and not giving a damn. “Sara!”

Nothing answered him but silence.

* * *

Sara had her eyes on Leonard’s back as he stepped through the door. She stayed right on his heels as she passed through the door. Though she figured he already knew, she wasn't going to admit that she was scared. Instead, she gave in to temptation and reached out to take his hand, when she must have blinked and suddenly she was lying down.

She blinked rapidly, but it was pitch dark, not even a sliver of light for her eyes to adjust to.

“Len?” she called, but her voice echoed back hollowly. She tried to sit up, but she hit her head on something wooden above her. “Ouch.” She reached up to rub at the bump, but her elbow hit wood to the side of her.

Panic began to sink in.

Wood above, below, around her. Dark. Hollow sounding. Sara’s breathing became shallow as she reached up, her knuckles brushing against the wood, the smell of earth and dust all around her.

“Leonard!” she shouted, ignoring the note of panic in her voice. “Leonard!”

Her voice echoed around the coffin, and there was no one but her to hear it.


	8. If you don’t confront your feelings, they will confront you.

After a moment, Sara choked down her panic and took a long, slow breath. Screaming wouldn’t do any good. So she closed her eyes, and took another breath, and thought about what she needed to do.

Though she’d never been conscious of being buried alive, it had been one of her worst nightmares since she’d come back. Knowing that she’d been in a coffin, underground, for two years...it had haunted her. It made sense that this is what the house showed her.

Reaching down slowly, Sara grasped the handle of her knife and pulled it up, resting it on her stomach for a moment. She got her phone out with a little bit of wriggling, and switched on the flashlight, if only to have a little bit of light.

Seeing the coffin didn’t make it feel any better, and she felt her breath start to speed up again, but she slowed it once more. She examined the coffin lid above her. Just like in her nightmares, it wasn’t a good quality casket, but a wooden coffin, shoddily put together with a few ragged nails poking through on the sides. She looked down a little, seeing a crack in one of the slats above her ribs. As good a place to start as any.

She shoved the tip of her knife into the slat, then held it there as she tucked her phone inside her shirt. There was a faintly orange glow as the light bled through the fabric, but she didn’t want to risk losing it. Then, she started to pry the board apart from the others, cracking it.

When the first bit of dirt began to pour through, the panic started up again, but Sara just pulled the collar of her sweater up over her nose and mouth and kept going. Eventually, the slat came loose and she broke it off, feeling one of the nails gouge her wrist. She pulled the broken board down, more dirt tumbling down on her chest and stomach, and started shoving the dirt towards the bottom of her coffin, keeping her breathing as slow as she could. The faint light showed her that there was a good 3-inch gap that went down at least a foot and a half.

When the dirt stopped falling for the moment, she started on the next board and did it again. Dirt was inside her coffin, covering her legs, but not tightly packed. The weight was more mental, though, and with every bit of dirt Sara piled on top of herself or coughed out of her mouth or blinked out of her eyes, she could feel her panic continuing to rise.

She didn’t know how long it took, but soon the next two boards broke, and the tentative pressure holding the dirt above her face had to be broken. She’d clawed through the wood when her knife couldn’t pry it, her nails ragged and her fingers weak with splinters. Now, she had to try moving up through the dirt. It was only six feet, right? That’s how deeply coffins were buried. Just six feet of dirt. She could stand in the coffin, and reach up through the dirt and her fingers would touch air. That’s all she had to do.

But first, she had to break through the earth packed above her coffin and allow it to cover her.

She reached up, and even in the subtle glow of her phone’s light, she could see her hands shaking. When the tears started, she couldn’t say, but she could feel them mixing with the dirt that had already settled on her face, turning it into mud.

Sara dug her fingers into the dirt above her and started to pull it down. It gave and started falling into the coffin, into her eyes and nose and mouth, despite the sweater covering it, the light smothered just like her.

She started to pull herself up, inch by inch, getting herself into an almost seated position inside the broken coffin. Tucking her chin against her chest, she did her best not to inhale as she situated herself to stand. 

When then, in the darkness and earth, she started hearing voices.

_ “She came back wrong.” _

_ “...should have left her dead…” _

_ “That’s not my sister.” _

Sara gasped, swallowing some earth as she did so, still trying to pull herself up.

_ “...soulless monster.” _

_ “That bloodlust will never go away.” _

_ “We were better off when she wasn’t here.” _

She could recognize the voices. Her father and sister. Ollie. Thea. Nyssa. Constantine.

Things she’d heard. Things she’d imagined. Things she knew.

She could nearly stand, her feet beneath her and she kept going, pushing the dirt down to occupy the coffin, and clawing her way towards the surface.

_ “Unnatural.” _

_ “Monster.” _

_ “Abomination.” _

Sara reached up, just six feet, that’s all she needed, right?

She stretched up, and her fingers encountered more dirt. More earth. Nothing to grab, nothing to hold onto, just an interminable climb.

_ “Should have stayed dead.” _

_ “Is she even really alive?" _

Sara let out a choked sob, still reaching, but knowing that she’d never really climbed out of this hole, and wondered if she ever would.

* * *

Leonard spun in a circle, not seeing any sign of Sara. Knowing that this was her nightmare, he tried to make sense of where he was, the skyline that had seemed familiar now his focus.

It wasn’t Central City. No. That tower was - this was Star City.

And he was in a cemetery.

Leonard started towards the headstones, but they were blank.

He knew she had nightmares about this. Before he died, there had been a few conversations. And once, out of a sense of morbid curiosity, he'd even looked up where her headstone was. He'd never told her that he'd done, but he'd seen pictures of that headstone under a tree -

He looked again, and there was a tree.

Leonard ran. He hated running, but he ran to that tree, hoping that he was right.

Screw it. He was praying.

Even before he got there, he could see that the headstone under it had a name. All he took the time to read was " _ Sara  _ -" before he skidded to the ground on his knees, knowing he’d feel those bruises tomorrow and ignoring it in favor of ripping away the grass that had begun to cover the plot, taking clods of dirt as he went.

It was shoddy and messy and he felt dirt being shoved beneath his nails and making his fingers ache, but he kept digging, because if she wasn’t here, if she was in one of the hundreds of other unmarked graves -

Well, he’d be in this room a damn long time.

Leonard shoved the dirt to the side, focusing on reaching the coffin he hoped was down there, just so he could talk to her, let her know she wasn’t alone.

Even now, when all he could see was grave dirt, he was calling out, “Sara! Come on, Sara! I’m right here!”

He dug down, feeling dirt climb beneath his sleeve like cold fingers, and nearly jumped out of his skin as a live hand wrapped around his wrist, clutching at him.

“Sara,” he breathed, reaching down with his other hand to help pull her up and push dirt away. Slowly, he was able to recognize the blonde hair, matted with dirt, her face smeared with dirt and tears, scraped by bits of grit and wood.

As soon as he could, Leonard pulled her up and out of the dirt, but she never let go of him, so he ended up sitting on the grass, with her half in his lap. He gave up on the pretenses he never wanted anyway, wrapping his arms around her tightly and felt her shaking get worse as the panic finally seemed to set in. He ducked his head down against her shoulder, the smell of dirt and earth not enough to keep him away.

“I’ve got you,” he told her, not knowing what to say, but hoping he didn’t make anything worse. “I’m right here and you’re okay. You’re okay, Lance.”

He didn’t know when they were moved back to the attic, but next he lifted his head, the cemetery was gone and they were on the ground. She was still covered with dirt, and he still had some under his nails. Pulling back enough to try and chance a look at her face, he instead saw her hands.

They were battered, almost every nail ripped and a few nasty looking scratches on her wrists from...from clawing her way out of her own coffin. His own breathing caught for a moment, but he pushed it back. This wasn’t about him.

Her shaking was slowing and when she blinked the pinpricks that had been her pupils started to widen a touch, the panic fading bit by bit.

“Welcome back,” he managed to say, though it came out shakier than he meant it to.

She laughed, a little too high still, but it was a laugh. She was still clinging onto him, neither of them moving from the ground. He wasn’t sure his legs were steady enough to support him, let alone what she must be feeling.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

“I’d say anytime, but let’s not do that again,” Leonard said, squeezing her a little closer.

Sara seemed to have no qualms about still holding onto him or him holding her.

“You okay?” Leonard asked.

“Not really,” she admitted.

“What do you need?”

She shuddered again and shifted to press her face into his shoulder. “I just need to stay like this a little longer, if that’s okay.”

Leonard wrapped his arms around her a little tighter, his own panic fading more with every one of her exhales against his shirt and with every beat of her heart beneath his hands. He’d stay like this as long as she needed. Forever, if that’s what it took.

“I think I can manage that.”


	9. Closest I ever came to dying was...the day I met Mick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meh. Not super thrilled with this one. But this fear isn't as easy to illustrate, and I only had a day to write it.

It took Sara a long time to stop the shaking and she couldn't even begin to consider the implications of literally sitting on Leonard’s lap. At some point, she felt his fingers combing through her hair, clumps of dirt falling out and landing on her shoulders. She knew they couldn’t stay here forever, though, and eventually exhaled slowly. When her breath stopped shaking, she lifted her head from his shoulder and sat up, shifting enough to slide off of lap, but still staying close enough that her leg pressed against his. She rested her head on his shoulder again, facing where her door had been, and he didn’t pull away.

“So that was…” Sara paused. “Not fun.”

“I gathered as much.”

She stretched her fingers, looking at the cuts and scrapes she’d gathered. She brushed off as much dirt as she could, wincing slightly. She didn’t look over at Leonard’s face, but caught sight of his hands. They were streaked with dirt and she could see it beneath his nails, deeply enough that it had to bother him, but he didn’t say anything.

“Thank you,” she said, still not looking at his face.

“Not dying again on my watch, Lance.”

That made her look over at him, wanting him to know she wasn’t trying to make a joke about this. “Seriously, Len. I don’t think I could’ve...thank you.”

His face didn’t have a trace of humor on it. “You’re not alone in this, Sara.”

Sara nodded, then started the tough process of getting to her feet. Leonard followed, the two of them definitely moving slower than before and she cursed quietly as the cut in her wrist throbbed.

“You good?” he asked.

She wiped it off on her jeans, trying to see it a little clearer. “I think so.” She patted her pockets and let out a sigh. “I lost my knife, though.”

Leonard made to hand her his, but she stopped him, reaching down to get the one in her boot. It wasn’t her favorite, but it would do the job.

“How many have you got?” Leonard asked her, a small smile in his voice.

“Enough to finish this,” she told him.

Leonard nodded, his eyes moving to the next door. Sara stepped up next to him, staying quiet. As much as she’d hated her room, there was a small part of her that was glad she’d gone first. At least the anticipation wasn’t as bad now. Leonard stared at the simple door in front of him, and Sara reached out, taking his hand. He started to pull back, then stopped, looking down at her.

“You’re not alone in this,” she reminded him.

Some of the tension eased somewhat, and he smiled, squeezing her hand in his. “Then let’s get this over with.

He opened the door and they stepped through hand in hand, together.

* * *

As Leonard stepped through the door, he wasn’t arrogant enough to let go of Sara’s hand. In fact, he held on even tighter, and when they were through, he let out a long sigh of relief when he saw that she was still there with him. Only when she looked up at him, the same relief in her eyes, did he try to figure out where in his nightmares they were.

It’s not like he didn’t have a lot to pull from, but he was still mildly surprised to recognize the dull walls around him.

“Prison?” Sara asked, looking around.

“Yeah,” he answered. He knew the familiar bunks, the functional toilet in the corner. The bars. The constant hum of voices, clattering, chatter. He was swiftly reminded of all the things he’d hated about prison. Something was off about the room, though. He couldn’t quite place it until Sara tugged him over towards the toilet in the corner.

Neither one of them had let go of the other, but he wasn’t about to say anything about it.

“Is it just me or is this too big?” she asked, looking down. The lid of the toilet was above her waist, and just at Leonard’s. Far too tall for a normal toilet. Now that he was looking, that was it - all the proportions were off. Everything was too large, too tall.

He heard footsteps coming from the hallway and turned towards the cell door, moving Sara slightly behind him. A stupid move, certainly, but a reaction he had a hard time stemming.

When the figure came into view, he heard Sara swear behind him, and barely managed to not to take a step back towards her. The guard opened the cell door, grotesquely tall, his features stretched and misshapen, while somehow still recognizable. 

“Time for the yard, Snart,” it ordered, the voice distorted.

Leonard frowned, not moving until the guard took a step into the cell, reaching for the stick on his belt. “Move.”

Leonard did, trying to keep himself between the guard and Sara. The guard didn’t even look at her, his eyes focused on Leonard.

Sara seemed to realize this, too. As they walked past the guard, she reached out and her hand passed through where the guard’s stomach was, the shape disappearing like mist beneath her fingers.

Leonard hesitated, just enough that the guard reached out to push him, and its fingers made contact before Leonard moved forward obediently. So Sara couldn’t touch it, but it could touch him. That didn’t bode well.

He led the way down the metal grating towards the yard, familiar enough with the map of the building. He and Sara were the only ones heading down to the yard, the guard behind them the only other person, though Leonard could definitely hear voices in the background. There weren’t any other prisoners in the cells they passed, but the rooms appeared to be getting bigger. Or Leonard and Sara were getting shorter.

The doors to the yard were twice Leonard’s height and the guard reached over their heads to open them up, shoving Leonard and, by extension, Sara, out into the cold air and shutting the door behind them. They were in a small cement alcove, brick walls on either side, and the locked doors behind them. In front, a few dozen yards or so away, there was a small green space, with more voices, but no figures. The wind was swirling, scraps of paper and leaves whirling around them. Sara reached out with her free hand, snagging what looked like a newspaper. She looked at it.

“October 27, 1986.”

Leonard’s breath froze and the wind dropped to nothing, the leaves falling to the ground immediately with a soft hush, the incorporeal voices stopping. Sara looked up at the silence, then at Leonard.

“Len?” she asked quietly.

“October 27, 1986, was during my first day in juvie.”

Footsteps were coming towards them, out of sight still, but he knew now what was coming.

“The day I met Mick,” he continued, reaching for his knife with his free hand.

It wasn’t there.

He could feel Sara moving, her quiet curse making it clear her knives were gone, too. The footsteps were getting closer, tall shadows blocking out the edge of the alcove and growing taller. There were three figures and he knew before he saw them what they would look like.

“The day I almost died,” Leonard finished.

The figures came around the corner, the ones on either side a blurry brunette and blond. The one in the middle, though, Leonard could see him clearly. Just like he remembered, the freckles like ink on the boy’s pale skin, his blue eyes cold and unfeeling, the shiv he’d made out of a discarded spoon sharp enough to do real damage and small enough to make his death take a long time.

The boy in the middle was taller than Leonard remembered, even though he’d been over a foot taller than Leonard when he was 14. Now, he was three feet taller, easily, the knife much larger.

Before he realized what was happening, Sara had let go of his hand and charged forward, her fists just as deadly as a knife, but Leonard was only distantly surprised when her punch passed right through the figure’s stomach, doing nothing.

The boy in the middle started towards him, knife raised, walking right through Sara. Leonard fell back slightly, crouching in preparation, but a voice shouted out.

“Hey!”

Between him and the figures, a tall and younger Mick was suddenly standing there, his arms crossed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Relief surged through Leonard, and he grinned at his memory of Mick, but something shifted. Mick grew older, more scarred, more terrifying, and slowly froze, half-encased in ice as he looked back at Leonard.

“You think you’re some kind of hero, but deep down, you’re still the same punk kid I saved in juvie,” Mick breathed out, the air freezing around him.

Mick went still, and the freckled boy moved, passing through Mick’s frozen body and shattering him into pieces.

The boy, feet taller than Leonard, raised his knife, bigger and stronger than Leonard, armed and with backup, while Leonard was, essentially, alone.

His nightmare.

The boy swung out and Leonard ducked under it, once, twice, but the third time, the back of the boy’s arm caught his middle and tossed Leonard to the side.

He hit the wall, dazed a little, shaking his head as he tried to get back to his feet.

Sara was next to him, helping him up to his feet. “Hey,” she said quickly, keeping an eye on the boy who was coming closer. “You are. You are a hero.”

Leonard let out a short laugh, staring up at the boy.

Sara shook his arm, drawing his eye down to her. 

“You are. You saved me. You saved Mick. You saved the world, Len. You’re a hero.”

Leonard pushed her away, using the momentum to move out of the way as the boy ran forward, getting closer and swiping out again.

“You’re not the biggest or the one with the most backup,” Sara called out to him, “but you’re always the smartest. You’ve always got a plan. Don’t tell me you didn’t think of something with all this time?”

Leonard risked a moment to cast his eyes over to Sara, who was smiling at him. “Come on, crook. You’ve always got a plan.”

He stopped trying to get away from the boy. Leonard faced him and took a step nearer. The boy swung out and though Leonard ducked again, he reached up, hitting beneath the boy’s arm and making him gasp. Leonard swung out again, in a move that Mick had taught him a few days after this had happened in real life, making the boy gasp, his air knocked out of him. Hooking his leg around the boy’s ankle, he pulled him down, like he’d seen Sara do to pull taller opponents down to her level. The knife hit the ground and Leonard grabbed it, turning and impaling the boy to the ground.

Leonard only had time to smile before the room faded away into nothing.


	10. But deep down, I am death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like this one a lot.

Leonard let out a long sigh, rubbing his eyes briefly. He opened them after a moment, unsurprised to see Sara watching him.

“I’m fine,” he told her.

“It’s okay if you’re not.”

He managed a small smile at that. It had been a while since he’d been able to be around someone, no masks at all. In fact, before the Oculus, it hadn’t been anyone other than Sara, in a very long time. Then he’d died and things were sometimes tense between him and Sara, but he still never felt like he had to pretend without her.

“That was...rough, but not what I expected,” he admitted.

“I’m sure it’s been a while since you felt small,” Sara said, her grin lingering around her mouth, smears of dirt still on her cheek and temple.

He would have blamed mental and emotional exhaustion for reaching out to wipe away some of the dirt off of her cheek, but she leaned into his fingers just slightly, and he decided he’d just take full credit for the move. Needing to lighten it up a little, he added, “Don’t know how you manage feeling like that all the time.”

Sara narrowed her eyes at him, smiling and ruining the expression. Unexpectedly, she moved towards him, wrapping her arms around his middle and hugging him tightly.

Leonard froze for a second, what little air he had left leaving his lungs in surprise. But after everything he’d seen, and everything he knew he still had to see, it felt...nice. So he responded, his arms going around her as if that would fix everything. As if that would keep what was about to happen from happening.

But they both knew it was inevitable.

He felt Sara exhale slowly, her shoulders drawing back as she straightened and stood. “My knives are gone,” she told him, letting her hands fall to her sides.

“Mine too.”

“Fisticuffs it is.” Sara turned towards the next door and reached out to grab the handle.

Leonard grabbed her other hand, holding onto her tightly.

“Worked the first time,” he said when she looked back at him.

Sara smiled. “Even if it didn’t, I’d want to.”

“Right behind you, assassin.”

She nodded at him, squeezing his hand, and opened the door.

* * *

Sara knew immediately where they were. The bridge and chrome and metal of the _WaveRider_ felt more like home to her than anywhere else in the world by this point. She moved forward, Leonard following along still holding tightly to her, and looked at the controls. They were on autopilot and she glanced out the window to see that they were in the timestream.

Out of curiosity, she said, “Hey, Gideon?”

**“** **_C-c-c_ ** **-cap-** **_ptai_ ** **…”**

Gideon’s voice stuttered and cracked, before fading with a distonal whirr into silence. She glanced at Leonard, but he was staring at the side of the computer console, his face drawn. Sara leaned over to see what had drawn his attention.

A smear of blood, part of it looking like a handprint.

“What the hell?” she whispered, looking at the ground for any other signs of -

“Lance,” he said quietly.

Sara followed his gaze and saw the tip of a shoe just out of sight in the corridor. She moved towards it, though she wished she could go anywhere else.  She stared at the foot, moving closer revealing inch by inch - a pair of dark pants, a polo shirt.

Ray Palmer was staring up at the ceiling, his mouth half-open and his throat slit. And though it was terrible, Sara wasn’t looking at him anymore.

She was looking down the hall of her home, of the one place she truly belonged, and it was lined with the bodies of her friends.

Rip, duster half torn off of him and his pistol sparking off to the side.  Amaya, her bloodied fingers still loosely wrapped around her totem.  Nate, not metal, a familiar staff sticking out of his chest.

“Sara,” Leonard said, looking at the staff. 

“I know.”

Zari, on her stomach, reaching out to something as if it would help.  Charlie, her hair coming out of its elaborate updo. 

Martin. Jax. John. Oliver. Behrend. Nora. Thea. Gary. Nyssa. Her dad. Barry. Kendra. Carter. Felicity. Diggle. Everyone she’d ever cared about.

They were coming up to the cargo bay, where she and Leonard had played so many card games. Just outside, was Mick, his gun shattered, one eye a gory mess as he sat propped against the wall. She heard Leonard inhale briefly, but he didn’t stop.

They stepped in, and Sara couldn’t go any further.

On the stairs was Laurel, her body broken in a half-dozen places and only just now dying, the rattle as she exhaled one that Sara had heard many times before. Sara knelt, letting go of Leonard’s hand, but before she could get down to Laurel’s level, she was already gone.

“Sara?” Leonard asked. She looked up at him, but he wasn’t looking at her.

In the center of the cargo bay stood...her.

As Sara looked, though, she knew it wasn’t really her. The pale hair and black eyes, the pallor on her skin, and the veins on her clothes made it obvious what she was looking at. The Death Totem.

And at the Totem’s feet, lay the body of Ava.

Sara gritted her teeth as she stared down the Totem, ignoring the corpses. She stepped over Laurel’s body and away from Leonard. He tried to follow her, but he drew up short, bumping into some sort of barrier. He pressed against it but it didn't move. He dropped his hands, meeting her eye.

“Lance,” he started, but Sara glanced back at him.

“I’m good. Just gotta kill it to get out, right? This’ll be therapeutic.”

The Totem wasn’t carrying knives or a staff, so Sara leaped forward. For a moment, they were perfectly matched, but then one of the Totem’s punches got through and knocked Sara back a foot.

Sara stumbled, nearly tripping over Ava’s body and looking down. She recognized the wounds - one across the throat and one in the chest, just like the League had taught her. Ava’s eyes were open and in the moment Sara looked, Ava’s head moved towards her, the mouth moving even as the eyes stared past her.

“That isn’t you.”

Sara swallowed hard and got back up, raising her fists again. Once more, she felt like she was holding her own, but only for a moment before the Totem kicked her, this one making her knee creak as she landed on it.

“Sara!” Leonard called out, but she didn’t hear what came next because Ava started talking again.

“It’s in the past. It doesn’t matter.”

Sara got up, but the Totem knocked her down again, looming over her. Sara kicked out and heard a crack in the Totem’s leg, but it remained standing, staring down at her.

Sara rolled to the side, out of the way, and the Totem watched her.

Ava’s unseeing eyes didn’t move, but her mouth opened again. “It isn’t really you. It’s okay.”

Knowing Ava was beyond seeing her, Sara nodded anyway and gritted her teeth, getting to her feet again. She moved towards the Totem, striking out first, but the Totem moved to the side and hit her again, knocking the wind right out of her lungs. She fell back, trying to catch her breath.

“You aren’t a murderer,” Ava told her.

Sara gasped again, clenching her fists.

“But you were.”

She couldn’t look over at Leonard, but the comment hit her almost as hard as the Totem. She shook her head, trying to figure out a way to hurt this thing, but Leonard spoke again.

“That isn’t you anymore,” he said, memories of Russia and a rifle in her hand coming forward. “But it was.”

“No, that’s not who you are.”

“It’s part of who you are,” Leonard argued, talking louder than Ava’s corpse on the ground. “It’s not everything, but it is you. You can’t run away from it. You can’t fight it. It’s you.”

Sara watched the Totem, but it didn’t move towards her. She looked over at Leonard, unsure.

“You can’t pretend it didn’t happen,” he told her.

“If you did this once, you could do it again,” Ava said, the corpse shuddering along the ground as it started to rise, not with the use of its hands, but by some supernatural force, just rising up to its feet and staring at her, the head lolling morbidly to the side. “If you accept it, you’re a murderer.”

“You did what you had to do to survive,” Leonard said. “We’ve all killed. Me. Hunter. You think the Green Arrow’s arrows aren’t deadly? He has his own body count. And Mick? You think that fire doesn’t kill them?”

“You’re afraid of yourself.” Ava moved forward, her feet dragging along the ground, but the Totem stood still, just watching Sara. “No wonder the rest of them fear you.”

“No, we don’t. We trust you. I trust you.” 

“Kill the past.”

“It’s part of you.”

“It should die.”

“It’s what kept you alive.”

Ava was directly in front of her, the coppery scent of her blood filling Sara’s nose. Instead of looking at her, Sara stared over her shoulder to the Death Totem.

To herself.

She held out her hand, open palm extended, and the part of her that had saved Sara for years, that she’d spent so long trying to ignore and hide, and pretend never happened, reached back out toward her.

“Don’t do it,” Ava whispered. “Please.”

Sara looked to where Leonard stood, still pressing up against the barrier, and he nodded.

Closing the distance, Sara took the other Sara’s hand and the figure shifted, melting away into nothing, as did Ava, Laurel, and the rest of the  _ WaveRider _ .

They were back in the house, in the attic once more. She was standing by the wall where her door had been and looked back to see Leonard in the middle of the room.

Leonard let out a breath of relief as she met his eyes, and his mouth lifted in a smile. “All things considered, not as bad as some, right?” When she just let out a little laugh, his expression softened a bit. “Nicely done, assassin.”

Him saying that word, that piece of her that she’d always quietly, secretly hated, like it was a term of endearment settled it for her.

Sara crossed the small room and Leonard held out his arms like he was expecting a hug.

Instead, she grabbed his sweater and kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all thought that wouldn't happen 'til the very end, huh?


	11. Killing is never easy, especially for a good man.

Leonard was not entirely caught off guard as Sara kissed him. A bit, yes, but there had been so many thoughts of this in the recent past. So many near-moments that they had let slip by. And tonight had just solidified what he already knew. He and Sara were good on their own, but they were better together. And they both knew it.

So although it was surprising, it was only due to the timing. He’d known they were heading this direction, and he was grateful for it.

The last time they’d kissed, though amazing for what it was, had also been a source of disappointment for him. It had been so quick and he’d had to hold in the bomb, he hadn’t even been able to touch her then.

So he didn’t waste time now. After a brief moment of surprise, Leonard put one arm around her and cupped her cheek with the other. Despite the sudden start, it was gentle and unexpectedly sweet, considering their situation.

It was even better than he’d imagined.

When Sara broke away, she smiled up at him, no embarrassment or discomfort in sight.

“Thought I was supposed to steal that,” he said quietly.

“Why steal something that was already yours?” She leaned into his hand a little. “Besides, you were taking too long.”

“I wasn’t sure if you…”

“You sure now?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good. You can steal the next one.”

Leonard smiled at her, then his eyes turned to the door. “Let’s finish this, then.”

“In a hurry?” Sara grinned.

“I find myself sufficiently motivated,” he responded, taking her hand and starting towards the door. Sara held onto him tightly and he pushed open the door.

The second they stepped through, Leonard knew where they were. There weren’t any distortions of size or sound. It was all just as he remembered. This was a nightmare he had often enough to know by now.

The bed in the corner with the blue sheets. The pictures taped to the wall. The window with the cracked frame. A small pile of dirty clothes in the corner. Though he couldn’t feel it through his shoes, he knew that the floor would be cold, the old wood doing nothing to keep the chill out. Sara went to the end of their linked hands, peering at a picture of a young boy with dark hair and a girl with curls that nearly covered her face.

“This is your room?” she asked.

“Yeah, it -”

He broke off as heavy footsteps interrupted him, coming from below and slowly moving upwards.

They both looked to the door.

“What’s with you and footsteps?” Sara asked quietly.

That drew a small laugh out of him. “Well, it’s the anticipation that really makes something more frightening. Knowing something is coming and not being able to do anything about it.”

“Then let’s get to it first.” Sara let go of his hand and went to the door, grabbing the handle. It didn’t turn. She looked at him over her shoulder and Leonard managed a small shrug.

“Wouldn’t be much of a fear if it was that easy to get out of.”

Still, persistent as always, Sara went for the window. She tried to pull it up, but it wouldn’t budge. Leonard did his best not to flinch as he heard glass breaking at the top of the stairs. A bottle shattering against the wall. Absently, he made a note to step around it tomorrow, before remembering. Old habits.

When the crying started in the next room over, though, Leonard closed his eyes. Lisa had escaped most of the physical abuse, but that didn’t mean she didn’t suffer.

He had his eyes shut when he felt a hand on his arm. He opened them, seeing Sara occupying most of the space in front of him.

“Lisa’s safe. Happy. Alive. This isn’t real.”

“But it was.” He didn’t pull away. “That’s the thing, Lance. Your fears are nightmares. Mine are memories.”

The door rattled and Leonard didn’t jump. He was too familiar with it to jump. He just moved to stand partially in front of Sara as it opened.

It swung open with a small creak, the figure outside backlit for a moment before stepping in. 

Lewis Snart glared at his son, holding a bottle by the neck. “Come here, boy.”

Leonard took a half-step, but Sara’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“He’s dead, Len,” Sara said quietly. “He’s gone and he can’t hurt you anymore.”

Lewis raised a hand to point at him. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. I said -”

He choked, the hand closest to Leonard turning blue, and cold frost spreading back towards Lewis’s chest and face, freezing him in place.

“I killed him,” Leonard said, but it didn’t make him feel better.

“You stopped him from hurting anyone else,” Sara said. “You saved Lisa. He was going to kill you, Lisa, and Barry if you didn’t stop him. You saved them,” Sara reminded him.

It was an odd way of saying that he murdered Lewis, but she wasn’t wrong.

“He can’t hurt you,” she said again. “You’re safe.”

Leonard stared at his father’s frozen eyes and nodded. There was a sharp crack, as Lewis’s body began to shatter, breaking on the ground.

He let out a sigh, feeling Sara’s fingers squeeze gently. He turned to face her, waiting to be transported back to the house -

But they weren’t.

There was a faint rattling, and they both looked back to where the pieces of Lewis were starting to vibrate on the ground, moving as if being shaken, migrating towards one another until they reformed into a human shape. Leonard frowned at it, taking a step back. This had never been in one of his nightmares before.

The ice-creature got to its feet, taking a step towards them. As it did, the ice began to melt away, colors becoming clearer, and a figure emerged.

It was Leonard, holding his cold gun and aiming it at Sara. The real Leonard moved to stand in front of her, but the other Leonard didn’t even seem to see him.

From around them, Sara’s voice echoed, though her mouth was shut and she looked just as confused as him.

_ “This isn't "Bonnie and Clyde." And I'm not going anywhere without the rest of the team.” _

Oh. Leonard stopped breathing, remembering now.

The other Leonard charged his gun, the whirring a familiar hum. He glared at the two of them, the gun still aiming at Sara.

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” the old Leonard drawled, but though the mouth moved, it didn’t sound like him.

As Leonard stared at the past him, the face shifted a little, a flicker of Lewis, the gun a bottle before turning back.

He’d been wrong. This was a nightmare he’d had. Just not this particular version.

“You’re not your father,” Sara said from behind him.

“I held a gun on you,” Leonard responded, not looking back.

“You seem to have a problem with being a killer,” the memory continued, the faces flickering faster. “I, however, don’t.”

Leonard shook his head, but Sara grabbed his arm, pushing her way past him. The past Leonard's gun remained trained on her and Leonard tried to get in the way, but Sara faced him and grabbed his arms, putting her back to the gun.

“I remember this, too,” she told him. “I said Prove it. Shoot me.”

_ “Shoot me.” _

“Lance,” he tried to argue, tried to push her out of the way, but she didn’t move. She didn’t even look back at the version of him that had threatened her life.

“And you didn’t,” she reminded him.

“I came close,” he snapped.

“And I nearly shot Martin. I nearly killed the team as the Death Totem. The important thing is that you didn’t. You aren’t going to hurt me like your dad did to you.” She moved so he looked at her, rather than the ever-shifting visage of his nightmare. “You said you trust me. I trust you, too.”

She squeezed his arms a little harder, then let go, turning back to the past-Leonard, his cold gun aimed directly at her chest. He knew from experience how much it hurt to experience the cold gun, and that was only on his hand - if it struck her in the chest, she’d be dead in seconds.

“Lance,” he said, the words choked with fear, taking a half-step forward.

The other Leonard’s finger tightened on the trigger but he didn’t completely pull it.

“Trust me,” Sara repeated. She took another step towards the past Leonard, out of reach of Leonard’s hands. Then another step, and another, until the gun nearly touched her chest.

Leonard stayed still, though it nearly killed him to do it. Nightmare or not, he wouldn’t hurt her like that. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

Sara reached out and put her hand on the past-Leonard's arm, like she’d done to him so many times, and neither Leonard moved. 

Then the past-Leonard looked briefly over at him, before dropping away into ash, the rest of Leonard’s bedroom fading away into nothing.

Before the house had fully reformed around them, Leonard was moving, taking Sara in his arms and holding her tightly against him.

“Never again, Sara.”

He didn’t know if he was telling her to never again do something so stupid or that he’d never again threaten to hurt her, but it didn’t seem to matter. She hugged him back, just as tightly.

Eventually, Leonard pulled back enough to try and say something witty that might lighten the mood, but as he saw where they were standing, all clever retorts vanished into an eloquent -

“Huh.”

Sara half-turned in his arms, obviously taking in the...space they were in.

It was definitely not a room. Not the attic or the hallway or the front door. It was a dark space, with nothing visible in the blackness save a single, faintly yellow glowing door.

Just one door.

They stared at it for a moment until Sara turned a bit more, glancing up at him.

“No knives,” she reminded him.

“No backup,” he added.

“Just you and me, crook.” She held out her hand.

“More fun that way, assassin.” Leonard took her hand and they walked towards the door together. Sara opened it and they stepped through without hesitation.

The light on the other side was bright and Leonard blinked a few times to clear his vision. As it cleared, he stared at where they were.

Sara’s hand tightened painfully on his and she drew in a breath.  “Oh, god.”

They were at the Oculus.


	12. Love will keep us together

Sara was so tired of this place. Between Leonard’s death here, the Legion, and the Crisis, she wished she could burn this place entirely out of her memory, and if she couldn’t do that, she’d settle for burning it out of the universe if possible.

The doors to the Oculus itself were open, the blue glow she’d had nightmares about for years spilling out onto the broken landscape of what was left of the planet. The path through the remnants of the Wellspring was treacherous, gaps between the floating rocks leading only to open space, the stars the only other things looking at them, at least from out here.

“Can’t say I’m all that surprised,” Leonard said, still holding onto her hand.

“Yeah, sorry,” she muttered as they started off.

“Why are you sorry?” They jumped easily from one broken piece to the next, not taking foolish risks, but still moving quickly.

“Because I’m sure you didn’t want to come back here.”

“Of course not, but -” He made a longer jump, letting go of her, then turning back so he could help catch her if she needed it. “This is your fear?”

Sara jumped, Leonard steadying her as she landed, a little unnecessarily but not unappreciated. “Well, yeah, who else -”

Leonard raised his brows at her.

“Oh,” she said lamely.

He stared at her for a long moment. “Double credit on this one, then,” Leonard said, looking toward the doors.

They walked to it, Sara feeling her heart rate rise, even if she tried not to show it. Leonard’s face was impassive, but she saw his fingers flexing as they got closer.

They didn’t have any weapons, they didn’t know what was facing them, they didn’t know how they’d get out of this one, so they did the only thing they could.

They walked right in without hesitating.

The Oculus itself sat in the center, whole and untarnished, even though the rest of the Wellspring was shattered. Part of Sara’s chest tightened as she saw it and she heard Leonard draw in a breath, but that may have been due to what was in front of it.

A tall figure, seemingly no more substantial than the smoke it seemed to be made of, hovered in front of the Oculus. There was almost nothing distinct about it and it constantly shifted - one arm-like appendage, then three, a head, then two heads, transparent wings. The only things that remained constant were two white voids for eyes and a yellow, glowing ring on whatever passed for a hand at a given moment.

The ring’s light flared for a moment and behind the thing, Sara saw her memory of Leonard still standing at the Oculus, alone. Passing right by her, was the memory of her pulling Mick out, refusing to look back because if she did, she would have stayed.

“I’m right here, assassin,” Leonard reminded her.

Sara nodded shortly. “The ring?”

“Good a guess as any.”

She cracked her knuckles and started forward, swinging around to the side, while Leonard went the opposite way to circle around.

The creature snarled, two heads appearing briefly, and the ring flared again, a burst of light surrounding the Oculus and she saw, in painfully slow motion, the explosion of the Oculus that enveloped her memory of Leonard. She stumbled but didn’t fall.

The ring flared again, and she heard a different memory, not from the Oculus, but before.

_ “I like you, Sara. You’ve got a lot of guts.” _

Sara glanced over her shoulder to see Mick facing down an image of her, heat gun in hand. It went off and Sara could almost feel the echo of pain on her shoulder from the burn that had scarred there years ago. Leonard’s eyes were fixed on it until she shouted out.

“It’s not real!”

He blinked and looked back at her, past the creature, nodding.

It shifted again, and pieces of smoke fell off of it, growing and undulating, forming into shapes that solidified into familiar nightmares.

Michael Myers. Norman Bates. Chucky. Lewis. Jack Torrence. The prison yard boy. Ava. A few shambling zombies.

They started towards Sara and Leonard.

“Shit,” Sara muttered, as Ava, Michael, and the zombies headed towards her, and Lewis, Jack, Norman, and Prison Boy went towards Leonard. She lost sight of Chucky almost immediately, but she definitely saw the ax in Jack’s hands as he went toward Leonard. Her choice was easy.

She ducked under the zombies and Ava’s slowly reaching hand, feeling only the barest scrap of her nails on her arm, knocking aside Michael’s knife and surging forward.

She moved past the smoke monster, unable to deal with that just now, and grabbed Jack’s arm, wrenching it up and back, hearing the snap and grabbing the ax before it hit the ground. She swung it around, taking out Prison Boy at the shoulder and when she saw he was falling, left it embedded so she could get to Leonard’s side before Lewis could, putting her back to his. Her nightmares started to follow, the numbers getting more overwhelming.

Ava’s cold eyes stared at her and she heard Lewis snarling at Leonard, so she leaned against the crook and said, “Switch?”

Leonard laughed. “Good idea.”

They turned in tandem, and Sara grinned at Lewis. “Hey.”

“Nice to meet you,” Leonard said to Ava.

Then they attacked.

* * *

There were few things in this world that Leonard enjoyed so much as a good fight. Give him a decent bar brawl any day, and he’d enjoy it. The bar fight back in the ’70s was among some of his best memories, fighting alongside Sara and Mick. This right now, fighting back to back with Sara, though it had slightly higher stakes, was exactly his idea of fun, especially as he saw a zombie go flying over Sara’s shoulder and he had the satisfying experience of punching her ex in the face.

He didn’t have anything against the government spook personally, but he’d seen the fear she represented, so he didn’t feel all that guilty.

But the monsters were relentless, and he and Sara were mostly unarmed. While at the top of their game, they were fine, but it had been a long few hours of fighting monsters and fears and crawling back to life, and he wasn’t as young as he used to be.

So a punch or two snuck in.

He felt Sara stumble against him as her weakened knee gave.

He heard Lewis laugh and Sara hissed in pain. Ava grabbed his arm and held too tightly for him to break free. They were surrounded, with no way out. Ava was trying to drag him closer, and his heart lurched when he saw Lewis had a hold of Sara’s hair, the jagged edge of the bottle in Lewis’s hand barely being held away from Sara’s throat.

Behind the chaos, he could see the smoke-monster, its eyes staring down at them as the ring continued to glow. They had to get out of here now or die. Time for a Hail Mary.

“Trust me?” Leonard asked, his voice strained.

Sara’s eyes cut over to him. “Yes.”

“Close your eyes.”

Sara stared at him for one more second, the monsters bearing down on them, then did so.

Leonard stopped pushing Ava away, reaching into his pocket as he felt her nails scrape across his face. He grabbed the flash bomb from Ray and threw it towards the creature, closing his eyes as he did so.

Even through his lids, he could see the burst of light and he somehow heard the creature scream, without a voice or mouth. The pressure from Ava’s hands gave way and he felt open space around him where the monsters had been.

“Go!” he shouted.

He heard her move and opened his eyes in time for the light to fade. There were still spots in his vision, but the creature was thrashing, shifting too quickly for him to even see what it was trying to become. Sara’s assassin training came into play as she vaulted through the fading forms of their nightmares, coming up just below the creature. Her hand shot out, bursting through the smoke to close around the ring and she tore it away as she rolled beneath and behind it. From between her fingers, Leonard could see the yellow glow pulse and begin to fade.

The monster screeched again, a pressure building on Leonard’s ears. He circled around the monster as it convulsed, and Sara moved with him until they were side by side. Around them, the Wellspring was fading away, flickering like the monster, bits of it vanishing as the power began to leave the illusion.

The creature lunged towards them but fell short, the smoke dripping down like liquid until there was nothing left but the white eyes, and then those faded too. As they did, the ring in Sara’s hand flared once more, then went dull. The Wellspring faded entirely, and they found themselves back in the entryway of the haunted house, no stairs or doors on any side, save the front door. Outside, they could hear noises, and lights passed by. They had done it.

Sara let out a sign, putting the ring in her pocket and looking up at him.

“So,” Leonard said, barely keeping his relieved smile to a smirk, “am I going to have to anticipate this sort of thing every time we do recon?”

“Didn’t you have fun?” Sara asked.

“There were definitely a few moments.”

She grinned at him and Leonard couldn't resist. He took a step forward, putting his hands on her waist, and ducked down.

The front door slammed open and Leonard sighed, dropping his hands and preparing to tell the teenagers to find another thrill, but the voice that spoke out was no teen.

"So is this what we call reconnaissance now?" Constantine said with a grin. Zari and Charlie behind him were smiling, but Zari’s humor quickly faded as she took in their bloodied and battered appearance.

"What happened? We tried hailing but you didn't answer, so we came down."

Leonard took a small step away from Sara, putting his hands in his pockets. "Haunted house."

"We couldn't get out and couldn't call for backup," Sara added. "So we had to take care of it."

"You look like hell. You two okay?" Charlie asked.

Leonard barely resisted the urge to look down at Sara, but he saw her smile out of the corner of his eye.

"Peachy,” she said. “Let’s go home.”


	13. She opened strange doors that we'd never close again

“Wait, so this thing made real monsters?” Ray asked, holding the ring in his hand and staring at it. “Like, really real?”

Sara spread her arms, the half-assed bandages and dirt still smeared on her. “Pretty real, Ray.”

“But what was it?” Nate reached out and took the ring from Ray, squinting at it.

“No idea.” Leonard was leaning against the console, apparently at ease, but Sara could see the lines around his eyes. “Gideon?”

**“I have not encountered the species you described. But there are more inhabited planets than Earth.”**

Mick chuckled. “You guys killed an alien.”

“Not my first.” Sara glanced over at Leonard, who smiled faintly.

“What did it make?” Charlie asked.

“Michael Myers. Chucky. Norman Bates,” Sara listed.

“Mrs. Voorhees. Jack Torrence. Zombies.”

Nate glanced at the ring again. “Huh. That could prove useful, to have some movie monsters on our side.”

“It wasn’t just movies,” Sara said quickly, the idea of anyone on her team putting on the ring making her stomach turn.

Constantine’s eyes narrowed, and Sara looked at the ring. “I was buried alive. And it showed me as the Death Totem.”

“It showed me my father,” Leonard added. “And the kid who nearly killed me in juvie.”

Mick’s head turned sharply towards Leonard. “What?”

“And the Oculus,” Sara said quietly.

Ray’s mouth was open and he stared at them. “So it...it not only showed you nightmares, but  _ your  _ nightmares?”

“Seems that way,” Leonard said. “And, when we took it off the creature, it died.”

Nate quickly handed off the ring to Zari, who glared at him, but took it.

**“I have completed my scan of the item. If it is not worn, it does not pose any threat to anyone on the ship. It seems to be driven by fear, which it also creates.”**

Zari shrugged. “I’ll go store it.”

**“With that completed, I recommend Captain Lance and Mr. Snart report to the medbay.”**

Sara would have complained, but those nails were old and rusty. The last thing she’d want would be tetanus right now. “Thanks, Gideon.” She looked at Mick. “You’ve got the helm for the next ten hours. I’m going to sleep for about a day.”

Mick gave her a half-hearted salute. “Aye, Cap’n.”

As she pushed away from the console, limping on her weak leg, Leonard straightened and followed her out. The murmurs of the crew faded behind them.

“What would it show you?” Ray was asking.

“You, with a loudspeaker,” Mick answered.

“I was just asking.”

Sara looked over to see Leonard already shaking his head. She smiled and they went into the medbay. Sara tried to untie the knot on her arm with one hand, but Leonard had done it tightly enough to keep it from bleeding more. She pulled at it for a few seconds, before he noticed and came over.

“Here.” He deftly undid the knot, revealing the cut from Mrs. Voorhees.

“Do you want me to…” Sara gestured at his arm.

“Sure.”

Sara plucked at the knot covering his wound, the fabric stiff with blood. It took some work to get it loose, and she made the mistake of looking up at Leonard while she was working.

He was very close, obviously, watching her face instead of her hands. “Not sure if I...thanked you, for everything you did in there.” His voice was quiet, but still the only sound in the room.

“You don’t have to thank me. You helped me, too.” She pulled, the fabric finally giving. Carefully, she removed the piece of her sweater from the cut, making sure there weren’t any strands left in it. When she was done, she didn’t move away, looking up again to find Leonard still staring at her.

**“Mr. Snart, you can go first.”**

He blinked and said, “Sure.” He took the medical chair, and the blue light of Gideon’s scan started going. Sara waited, leaning against the wall, and was relieved when the delicate chime of a clean scan echoed in the room.

**“You are fine, Mr. Snart. A sanitizing shower and the medical packet will have you back to normal in 48 hours.”**

“Thanks, Gideon,” he said, standing up and moving over to the drawer that held the pre-medicated gauze that they commonly used after rough missions. It was excellent stuff and typically closed up most wounds, burns, and scrapes in less than a couple of days.

Sara didn’t need Gideon’s prompt to get in the chair next. As the blue light started its scan, she closed her eyes, feeling them burn a little in her exhaustion.

“You alright, Lance?”

“Just tired.”

He was quiet for a moment. “Sara, I -”

The medbay door opened and Sara looked over as Charlie popped her head in. “Oi, I heard there was something ‘bout an alien? What was it?”

Before either of them could answer, Gideon’s scan gave the chime that there was something wrong.

**“Captain, you appear to have the beginning of tetanus and a sprained knee. You will need to spend another seven minutes here, along with the appropriate medication, in addition to the sanitizing shower and medical packet. You will have to go easy on that leg for the next 48 hours, with a full recovery in an additional 36.”**

“Great.” She looked at Charlie. “Look, I’ll be done in a bit, and then -”

“I’ve got it,” Leonard said. “Just do what Gideon says and head to bed.”

She didn’t want to just leave things as they were, but she was tired and didn’t have much of an option. Still, she didn’t want him to just go without something. “We’ll talk later?”

It came out more hesitant than she meant it to, but Leonard gave her the tiniest lift of his lips. “Definitely, assassin.” With a small nod, he followed Charlie out, tucking the packet into his pocket and letting the door shut behind him.

“Alright, Gideon,” Sara sighed. “Do your worst.”

**“I assume you’re being sarcastic, Captain. My worst would undoubtedly kill you.”**

She smiled, closing her eyes. “I love you, Gideon.”

**“As you should, Captain. Now stay still.”**

* * *

It was almost two hours later before Leonard was finally heading to bed. Between Charlie’s incessant questions about the alien, and Ray’s increasingly personal questions about the fears they’d been exposed to, and Nate’s questions about the ring, he’d been about ready to freeze all of them. It wasn’t until Mick turned in the captain’s chair and ordered them all to shut the hell up and leave him alone that he’d been able to escape to the bathroom to take a shower and change his clothes. The packet was already helping, and he’d taken a long time in the shower as he scrubbed all the grave dirt out from under his nails, finally feeling a little more human.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t tired. He was exhausted. But he also knew what was waiting for him in his dreams tonight. Just because his conscious mind had acknowledged the illogic of his fears didn’t mean they wouldn’t still haunt his dreams. They might be easier to shake off the next morning, but it didn’t mean he was entirely free of them. Having seen every significant fear tonight, his dreams were bound to be exciting this evening.

He snuck back to his room, avoiding the rest of the team as much as possible, though he stopped by Sara’s room briefly. She wasn’t back yet. Hoping the team hadn’t jumped her on the way out of the medbay, he went to his room to drop off his towel with every intention of heading back out again to find the missing assassin -

Only to see her sitting on his bed.

“My door’s locked,” Leonard said, hanging up his towel, eyeing her.

Her hair was damp, having obviously just finished her own shower, too. “Captain,” she said simply. There was no sign of dirt on her anymore and she seemed a little more comfortable.

That earned a small chuckle. “Right. Feeling better?”

“Clean bill of health,” she said, holding out her arm to show her own packet already applied. She was dressed far more casually than normal, in loose pants and shirt.

Leonard leaned against his wall, crossing his arms. “Glad to hear it.”

She looked at her hands for a moment, then got to her feet with an inhale. “Look, Len. I think it’s pretty telling that after everything I’ve been through, my biggest fear was of the Oculus.”

It was, and he’d tried to say something before Charlie had interrupted them, he just didn’t know what. 

She kept her eyes on his face, but he could see the nervous twisting of her hands. “Seeing as how we literally just fought off nightmares, it seems pretty stupid to be afraid of something as simple as telling you that I care about you. A lot. And if you still want to give that future you talked about a shot, I’m all in.”

Leonard took a breath, his arms unfolding as he took a step forward.

“But if you’re not,” she said, her voice slightly faster, “I get it and -”

He crossed his small room, sliding his hand beneath her chin, and stealing the kiss he’d been challenged to steal all those years ago. He felt her tense up slightly before she sank into it, wrapping her arms around his neck, her fingers sliding up through his hair. This was less chaste than their kiss earlier in the evening, and Leonard reveled in the taste of her. Still, it was relatively short; he could feel the slight shake in her knee from standing on it and his arm was aching from where Ava had been wrenching on it.

He broke the kiss, though he didn’t move away. “I still want to.”

“Yeah, I figured that out, thanks,” she said breathlessly.

He laughed, kissing her once more briefly. “It’s you and me, assassin.”

“Good.” She grinned up at him and leaned in to kiss him again, when she was stopped by a jaw-cracking yawn, which set him off.

Luckily, Sara laughed, pulling away from him enough to drop her arms. Leonard let go of her and she started towards the door, that smile still on her face. “We’re both exhausted. I should go.”

“Or you could stay.” He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to say it, but he meant it. He wanted her to.

Sara stared at him for a moment, the smile fading. “What?”

“Just to sleep, Lance,” he clarified. Not that he wasn’t interested in other things, but he really just wanted her to stay. He moved past her to the bed they’d played cards on so many times, pulling back the sheets.

“Are you sure?”

“You saved me from my nightmares several times today,” he said quietly, looking back at her. “Wouldn’t mind having you close by in case I needed another rescue.” He gestured towards the lights and got into bed.

She smiled and turned them off before sliding in next to him. She didn’t hesitate to move in closer, resting her head on his shoulder. It took a little fumbling on both their parts, but soon they were both settled, half-entwined in his bed, and Leonard hadn’t felt this comfortable in a long time.

“Don’t worry, hero,” Sara said against his chest. “The assassin is here to protect you.”

He laughed again, squeezing their clasped hands. “Happy Halloween, Lance.”

“Happy Halloween, Snart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween, guys!


End file.
